Author, Speaker, Touron

Workers in Chinese apple orchards earn a daily wage that their counterparts in the orchards of Michigan earn in 10 minutes. This and the lack of environmental regulation in China is why 75% of apple juice concentrate consumed in the U.S. is made from Chinese apples, and often have levels of inorganic arsenic higher than the FDA allows in drinking water.

Good thing, too, because if the beer world was a democracy, we’d surely elect another, better-tasting, beer to be our leader. But, alas, Budweiser is American as Levi’s (made in Cambodia) and Coca-Cola. In places like, China it is imported. Yes, China sends us computers and we send them our subpar beer.

I saw this dude chugging a Bud atop Shanghai’s Pearl Tower

What the strangest place you’ve seen someone chugging a Bud?

I visited Shanghai to research my new book WHERE AM I EATING?AN ADVENTURE THROUGH THE GLOBAL FOOD ECONOMY, which comes out April 22nd (Earth Day)! Over the next five weeks I’ll be sharing new photos, videos, and stories from…

Everyone is all about teaching a man to fish, not giving him a fish. Everyone is all like trade and not aid. I’m guilty of this too. (See my give a man a job making shoes not a free pair of shoes argument regarding TOMS.) In response to this, Save the Children UK made a Monty Python inspired video about the not-so minor things aid has accomplished.

Jessica Jackley in Uganda about to have her life changed by changing lives.

Jessica Jackley eventually became the co-founder of Kiva, but before that she was a lovestruck philosophy major who followed her boyfriend across the country to California where she worked a temp job at Stanford. While there she attended a lecture by Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, which makes microloans to the poor. She was impressed at how he simply sat down with the poor and asked them what they needed, instead of telling them what they needed. She was inspired to do the same.

She quit her job and spent three months in Uganda interviewing farmers and fishermen. She saw how small amounts of money could…

Who are you writing for? Why do you write?

These are big questions.

I want to help you help our community with your writing skillz. (That’s right with a z!)

I’m assembling a League of Extraordinary Writers who want to improve their writing and make an impact in the Muncie community. Over the past few years, I’ve committed myself to helping local organizations tell and share their stories, but there are more stories than I can tell. I need help. I need you!

(This is a joint note from me and my co-founder of The Facing Project, J.R. Jamison.)

Stories make a difference.

Stories shatter preconceptions and expand our worldview.

Stories change our hearts and inform our minds.

Stories feed our curiosities and our souls.

Every person has a story and so does every community.

What’s yours?

We invite you to be a part of the story of The Facing Project by helping us reach our goal of creating facingproject.com website. The site will house the tools to help the project spread to other communities, and will allow current Facing Project communities the ability to share their stories on their own unique sites, such as fortwayne.facingproject.com. This next step in our story will push this movement forward and provide the opportunity for thousands of unheard voices to be shared.

The University of Kentucky has announced the selection of WHERE AM I WEARING? as their 2013-2014 common read book. This means that all incoming freshman will read the stories of Amilcar, Nari, Ai, Arifa, Dewan, Zhu Chun, and all the rest of the amazing folks I write about in WEARING.